MIEL Pangilinan celebrated pride two years ago by coming out as “queer” ; this time she does the same by defining herself as “pansexual”. 

In a conversation with ABS-CBN News, the 19-year-old shared the reason for her labeling herself as queer during her coming out instead of the usual “gay”.

“I just like to use “queer” cause it’s just an umbrella term or just somebody who doesn’t necessarily feel as though the existing labels fit them,” Miel said during the interview with ABS-CBN. 

She also said that she doesn’t have a specific label, “One thing that I feel more aligned with is parang ‘pansexual’,” she added. 

The 19-year-old shared that her attraction to people isn’t limited to their gender or how they identify or present themselves. Pansexuality as defined by Healthline is the attraction to any kind of person no matter their gender. 

Photo Courtesy: mielpangilinan | Instagram

Miel looked back to the time when she came out in an Instagram post last June 2022, “I see no point in not saying it and it was during Pride month too, so I thought I’d celebrate it,” she explained. Her family knew she was queer even before publicly coming out, “I was fairly open to everybody around me,” Miel said. 

During her journey to coming to terms with her sexuality, her sister Frankie was the one she always talked to, “I’ve been talking to my sister about it because I felt so scared,” she said, this was one of those times wherein she was having thoughts on how to come out to her parents (Sharon Cuneta and Kiko Pangilinan). 

Miel came out to her parents during her 16th birthday back in September 2020 during the lockdown as she thought it was the right time to say it.

She shared that her mom took a while to process her coming out but she was supportive afterwards, “It felt so wonderful and we cried together.” As for her Dad he already knew beforehand, “I told him, Dad’ I’m gay,” and he said “I know you told me when you were 13.”

Miel described coming out as something of an “internal process”, “My whole life motto or the way I live is to try your best to be yourself as you can and as for me it was really difficult for me to be closeted,” she shared. 

This is Miel’s second time celebrating Pride month ever since coming out and she looks forward to doing it with the rest of the LGBTQIA+ community. 

As she hasn’t attended any Pride event, she wants to make up for the times she missed, “I’ve only been out for two years, so last year, I wasn’t able to. This year I hope I can go,” she said. 

With reports from Katelyn Miralles

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